ISS, September 7th 2021
Marco Martuzzi is the new Director of the Environment and Health Department of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità - ISS (Italian National Institute of Health).
He graduated in Mathematics from the University of Bologna and worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) for over 25 years. Mr. Martuzzi returned to Italy from Seoul to take on the role of Director of the Environment and Health Department of the ISS, where he started his career in the Environmental Epidemiology Unit.
Author of over 300 publications, Martuzzi was the Head of WHO’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Environment and Health in the Western Pacific Region in Seoul. He returns to Italy with long-standing international experience of the most critical issues on the impact of the environment on human health.
He worked with the Environmental Epidemiology Unit at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where he got a Ph.D. in public health and mainly studied the effects of air pollution on human health. He then worked with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) on the assessment of the carcinogenicity of environmental agents. When he moved to WHO in Bonn, he was in charge of the health impact assessment programme and worked, among others, on the former Ilva plant in Taranto upon request of the Puglia Region.
As an expert in climate change, sustainable development and environmental quality, he was engaged by WHO to support Member States and provide strategic consulting activities and training in the field, interacting with the main bodies involved in health and environmental management.
In his capacity as Director of the Environment and Health Department and through his work at the ISS, Martuzzi intends to put all his experience at the service of his country, which he always collaborated with over the years. "I am happy to be back in Italy at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, where I started my scientific career", said Marco Martuzzi. "The wide range of issues the ISS deals with, along with the skills and abilities of its staff, are an excellent opportunity for me to use the experience gained over the years. An interdisciplinary approach is needed to address complex issues such as climate change, environmental pollution, and the sustainability of systems that are at the heart of our challenges and are essential for the future of our health."
